isaidso
Senior Member
Hopefully in 30-40 years from now it can be restored. It was an elegant building before they butchered it.
Toronto 401 Bay Street | 143.86m | 33s | Cadillac Fairview | WZMH
- Thread starter androiduk
- Start date
Hopefully in 30-40 years from now it can be restored. It was an elegant building before they butchered it.
MisterF
Senior Member
In my best Marlon Brando:
"Look how they massacred my boy"
"Look how they massacred my boy"
innsertnamehere
Superstar
unbelievably bleh. And it replaced a fairly competent design that just needed a bit of cleaning up.
Yegger
Active Member
It's like they tried way too hard but not at all to fix it. I think a cleaning and new windows/cladding in the same colour/tones would've sufficed.
thecharioteer
Senior Member
Not to pile on (and I've already expressed my opinion of this retrofit previously in this thread), but this picture has convinced me that demolishing the old building, resulting in a shadow across NPS created by a new taller building, would have been preferable to this. So ironic that the Design Review Panel, which often nitpicks on the most obscure buildings in secondary locations didn't even get a chance to look at this. I don't think this even went through Site Plan Review (notwithstanding the block being on the Inventory of Heritage Properties). Heritage Preservation Services spent months batch-listing banal 2-storey retail buildings on Eglinton, Mount Pleasant, Bayview and Yonge, but never put protections in place to protect this building, designed by one of the City's premier modernist architects on the City's premier urban square. Something is definitely wrong with our planning department and its priorities.
thecharioteer
Senior Member
See Interchange's post #102 from November 26, 2015, with a quote from Mary Macdonald, head of Heritage Preservation Services (my bolding):
I have double-checked everything. When the designation was done for the property (1976), explicit reference was made that the Simpson's Tower was not included. The original listing (1973) was for the older portions only as well. Given that in 1973 the Simpson's Tower was only 4 years old (7 in 1976) it is understandable that there wasn't enough perspective on the modernist movement to inform an understanding of value. Of course, the designation could have been amended to include it after time had passed, but the necessity to do so wasn't on anyone's radar.
All Hudson's Bay needed was a building permit. They applied for one and got one. No other planning process was necessary. I cannot speak to the matter of the design review panel, though it would be atypical for a building permit application to be reviewed, and no link with the planning division to facilitate.
That's because the "planning" within her department wasn't (and still isn't) being done.
I have double-checked everything. When the designation was done for the property (1976), explicit reference was made that the Simpson's Tower was not included. The original listing (1973) was for the older portions only as well. Given that in 1973 the Simpson's Tower was only 4 years old (7 in 1976) it is understandable that there wasn't enough perspective on the modernist movement to inform an understanding of value. Of course, the designation could have been amended to include it after time had passed, but the necessity to do so wasn't on anyone's radar.
All Hudson's Bay needed was a building permit. They applied for one and got one. No other planning process was necessary. I cannot speak to the matter of the design review panel, though it would be atypical for a building permit application to be reviewed, and no link with the planning division to facilitate.
That's because the "planning" within her department wasn't (and still isn't) being done.
UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
If I was The City, I would force the developers to put it back to original design in a heart beat. And bill them by the hour for us having to look at this shite until they do...
...I'll say though, this is obviously complete fantasy of mine to which has no legal teeth, among other things. But I can't say enough of how disgusted I am to what they did to this place. /sigh
...I'll say though, this is obviously complete fantasy of mine to which has no legal teeth, among other things. But I can't say enough of how disgusted I am to what they did to this place. /sigh
adma
Superstar
Well, to be fair, the "on anyone's radar" includes those from without her department as well as those from within. And it is true that some "settling-in" time would have been required before including the Tower within the designation in 1973/76, given how such things were set up then. And over time, the fact of the designation was more or less casually taken for without-checking-the-fine-print granted as "probably" including the entire block, perhaps because of the superficial reference to 1969 alterations. So btw/that, and a broader planning process that mitigated against flagging or design-panel scrutiny for an "alteration" such as this one, it was a victim of a perfect storm of loopholes.
And to repeat what I've been saying all along: what *really* would or should have addressed a matter like this wouldn't have been just casually amending the original designation (which really *did* have to be something motivated from without, given how HPS is an arm's-length organization: "you ask, and we shall do", that sort of thing), but something along the lines of broader-reaching City Hall Precinct heritage planning--maybe as a sidebar to or extension of the NPS redesign process over the past decade and a half, but also with a bow to something like the Union Station HCD which *did* include recently-built and to-be-built properties as part of a more comprehensive, holistic "heritage planning" vision...
thecharioteer
Senior Member
However, in no way is Heritage Preservation Services an "arm's length organization", (like Heritage Toronto or the Toronto Preservation Board); it is an integral part of the Planning Department and their Manager reports to the Director of Urban Design. My complaints relate to their priorities, which do not include the preservation of modernist buildings and have focused on such dubious exercises as the "batch listings" in North Toronto instead of acting on such ideas as a City Hall Precinct (and don't get me started on their support for Hotel X at the CNE).
adma
Superstar
They're "arm's length" insofar as they're assigned to be bureaucrats, not activists. They work w/what they've been dealt with; they don't step forward with "uh-oh, you'd better look at this" unless somebody's approached them to do so. And in this case, nobody made such an approach until it was too late. They, in and of themselves, are blameless when it comes to this particular case; nobody preemptively flagged this to them as something of concern. And unfortunately, because of lingering megacity fallout, they're waist deep in all sorts of "other stuff". But if they were given power to be pro-active, I do not see why they would *not* have addressed this, particularly had they been preemptively informed of what was afoot.
And because of that "bureaucrats, not activists" element, the priorities often aren't their own, they're those of the elected authorities and community groups whom they serve. Thus such gestures as the batch listings...*and* the fact that said batch listings themselves disregard "modernist buildings" in their midst. That isn't by HPS's making, that's by Matlow & Co.'s making.
And likewise, it would have required someone from the outside w/political clout to advocate for a City Hall Precinct. Nobody did. Nobody thought of it. Because nobody foresaw something like this happening.
Yes, I'm "distributing the blame", with an undertone of "the enemy is us".
officedweller
Senior Member
I didn't realize that the entrance was so elaborate.
The corners of this entrance are nicely curved in brick looking like art moderne.
Was that an entrance to the Arcadian Court? (rather than the office tower)
(and was the Arcadian Court at the tim in an art moderne design?)
Obsidian
Active Member
Before
After
After
AlexBozikovic
Active Member
This is absolutely not the case. From my reporting, it seems HPS have a high degree of autonomy and latitude.
You might guess that all those main-street storefront listings were engineered by councillors; you would be wrong.
There are exceptions. Sometimes a councillor will recommend a specific building for designation. But the overall shape of heritage policy in Toronto right now is quite tightly controlled by Heritage Preservation Services.
As for this specific building; a study of buildings associated with the Parkin office would have caught it. So would a study of important 20th-century buildings. But HPS doesn't do that sort of thing. They generally doesn't focus on architecture per se, nor on anything post-WW2.
adma
Superstar
The "generally doesn't focus upon architecture per se" part is important, whatever the date.
However, when it comes to said main-street storefront listings, one has to remember that the scope of what can plausibly be viewed and beheld through a "heritage" lens has exploded over the past half century, and a lot of today's heritage listing/designation infrastructure is really designed for more of a prima donna focussed era. And it's only fairly recently that the obnoxious NIMBY implications of such expanded scope have loomed to the point of leading to "heritage run amok" questioning--but until then, there was actually something refreshing about the notion of our "scope of historical beholding" expanding to include local storefronts and ex-Kresges and the like, and not just your requisite pre-Confederation or "Century Home" obvious landmarks. So measured against *that* expansive reality, the viewing of our urbanscape, our cultural landscape, in historical-accretion terms, the batch listings make sense--the only quibble you could have w/HPS is from a "they could have said no" standpoint. But the way things are equipped these days, they're absolutely qualified to make a case for these properties. And what's "engineered by councillors" (and community groups) isn't so much what is included, as what is *excluded*--that is, HPS being pressed into being hired guns on behalf of a strictly "prewar streetscape". Likewise re the Rosedale HCDs maximizing the VictorianEdwardianGeorgian while skirting over stuff like the Sun House (and NB I'm looking at that in "reverse argument" terms--not insofar as the Sun House demolition could have been avoided, but insofar as what makes the rest of the designated-prewar Rosedale fabric so extra-special that it ought to be insulated from the same).
In fact, the *real* problem with our "expansive scope" era is that it leads to a truly, dauntingly top-heavy circumstance of *what* HPS can plausibly handle. So, practically speaking, they can only tackle what they're assigned to do. It's not so much about blind spots from within as "hired gun" logistics reflecting the blind spots from without...
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adma
Superstar
Or when it comes to the "generally does not focus upon architecture per se, nor on anything post-WW2" point: maybe the best illumination of that is the fact that this has been listed since 1973, while Davisville PS just a stone's throw away was never listed and consequently demolished.
Yet, this is how it's *always* operated--"pioneering settlement" given priority over contemporary expression. And that's not necessarily a bad thing--I mean, as much as one might regret Davisville PS's demolition, you're not going to get much heritage sympathy by suggesting that *this* should have been sacrified instead. Today's optimum would be "both/and" rather than "either/or"--and of course, therein lies the problem, because the stock of "both/and" is infinite...
Yet, this is how it's *always* operated--"pioneering settlement" given priority over contemporary expression. And that's not necessarily a bad thing--I mean, as much as one might regret Davisville PS's demolition, you're not going to get much heritage sympathy by suggesting that *this* should have been sacrified instead. Today's optimum would be "both/and" rather than "either/or"--and of course, therein lies the problem, because the stock of "both/and" is infinite...